"So yeah the son of God was on earth, but you just missed him. He was crucified about 50 years ago. Your dad might've met him."

And then Mount Vesuvius fucking explodes

Edit: I meant Roman, I wrote this late at night.

    • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]
      ·
      4 months ago

      I'm so interested in this stuff. I found it fascinating reading Graeber's Debt when he talks about how a lot of words relating to sin, transgression, etc. have very old etymologies linking them directly to the concept of debt.

    • PurrLure [she/her]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Is there a documentary or good video I can watch about this?

    • ComradeRat [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      4 months ago

      greeks set up colonies along the entirety of the mediterranean sea from the west shore to the east and from the north to the south. They were settler-colonising in this way from around the 400s or 500s BC until they got owned by the romans

  • radio_free_asgarthr [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Wait, they are worshiping the guy that made bread and wine? Then went into a death an rebirth cycle? Are you sure they weren't confused and talking about Dionysis?

    • miz [any, any]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Egyptian guy overhears the conversation and breaks in arguing about Osiris

  • Florn [they/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Chances are you're a follower of one of the myriad other wacky mystery cults floating around at the time anyway

    • Thallo [she/her]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Oh, your messiah died? Mine is still alive in the next village over

      • Weedian [he/him]
        ·
        4 months ago

        Oh he just died? You're telling me now for the first time

      • Florn [they/them]
        ·
        4 months ago

        I heard they're gonna be minting a new Messiah in Alexandria next week

  • Flyberius [comrade/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Why Greek specifically and not Roman?

    Also Caesar and Cicero and some of the fall of the Republic all time greats were all crowded around this time period too. It was like MCU, but less lame

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
      ·
      4 months ago

      It was like MCU, but less lame

      No matter how cringe capeshit is it will never be as cringe as the Romans.

    • The_Walkening [none/use name]
      ·
      4 months ago

      IIRC people in that part of the Roman empire commonly spoke Greek because of Alexander the Great's conquest of the area centuries earlier. So you'd be more likely to run into someone bilingual in Aramaic and Greek than you would Aramaic and Latin

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I'd probably be most incredulous about the Virgin Birth part. "Wait your God didn't turn into a goose or something so he could bang Mary on the sly? You sure about that?"

  • Camdat [none/use name]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Highly recommend Engels "On the History of Early Christianity" if you haven't read it.

    https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    4 months ago

    In fairness Jews were very common in the east empire and gentile "god fearers" weren't uncommon either. They'd just be a particularly annoying gentile essene offshoot.

  • Pisha [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I've always wondered why people were so ready to convert. Like, if I was some ancient Roman and some guy came up to me offering a new god that's even better than the old ones and much easier to worship, I wouldn't just immediately fall for it. It just seems like a scam.

    • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      4 months ago

      It did take a while, and I'm sure people called it a cult of Jesus or something back then too (Idk if there's evidence for that but there were many cults of Gods/demigods etc. in antiquity)

    • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Periodic reminder that the Roman Empire sucked, for everyone who wasn't a patrician.

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Around that time the Gospels were all like zines, really popular in the growing christo-punk scene back then